After the global shock wave caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, "Le Figaro" explores the complex relationships in history between China, fascinating and source of fantasies, and the West. From Marco Polo's trip to the court of the Grand Khan to the meeting between Mao and Nixon, through the opium war.
Before living it, Ibn Battuta dreamed of his trip: “At night, I saw myself in a dream on the wing of a large bird which flew in the direction of the Ka'ba, then towards Yemen, the East, the South, then again far to the East. It was then that he went down to a dark green earth and left me there. " Thirty years later, his dream fulfilled, the same man looks back on his long journey and writes: “I had obtained, thanks be to God, what I wanted here below: to travel the world and I had obtained in this area, to my knowledge, more than any other. "
Read also: Marco Polo, discoverer of the wonders of China
For five centuries, the glory of Abu Abdallah Mohammed Ibn Abdallah al-Lawati at-Tanji Ibn Battuta was limited to the Arab-Muslim world.
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